Social Media in the 2010 Election

By:

Rebecca Nelson, PhD

Richard T. Hartman, PhD
Andrew B. Einhorn, M.S.

OhMyGov Inc. Research

September 2010

Abstract

As social media platforms continue their move from fringe to mainstream, elected officials and
challengers to their offices need to understand the impact of social media as they incorporate it into
traditional campaign paradigms. Campaign strategists are quickly learning that even the most carefully
orchestrated campaigns can encounter unexpected pitfalls or boosts thanks to bloggers, Facebook fans
and other vocal social media followers. Grassroots movements often begin and end on social media,
making it all the more important that strategists analyze social media metrics regularly. By
understanding and predicting social media, one can track a candidate’s or political party’s popularity on
social media with respect to competitors as an early indicator of election outcomes. To create a deeper
understanding of the current political climate leading into the 2010 U.S. Congressional mid-term
elections, this paper presents an analysis of social media growth patterns for U.S. House and Senate
incumbents of rival political parties. Results from the study indicate that Republican members of
Congress are gaining popularity on social media at faster rates than Democratic members. The trend
may signify that a shift in political power in Congress from Democrats to Republicans is imminent this
election cycle.

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 1

Introduction

Many political analysts believe that the use of social media helped to swing the 2008 Presidential election in
favor of Barack Obama. The Obama campaign used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to
generate interest in the candidate and his policy ideas with great success. By election day, Obama had
more than 2 million supporters on Facebook, while his opponent, John McCain, had just over 600,000.
On Twitter, Obama directly reached more than 112,000 followers, compared to just 4,600 followers for
McCain.1

The powerful role social media played in shaping Presidential politics during the previous election cycle
is not an anomaly. Social media appears destined to play an increasing role in politics and political
campaigns, and may one day replace traditional surveys and telephone polling. Today, the social media
world is still mysterious, as researchers and campaign managers maneuver to determine if social media
data may be used to make predictions or to identify trends in public sentiment prior to elections. Research
is needed to determine whether social media data may be used to accurately predict election outcomes,
and which metrics are most important for making such determinations. This paper focuses on assessing
the current political climate among voters in the November 2010 U.S. Congressional mid-term elections.

Political pundits have speculated that the Democratic Party will lose their supermajority in Congress, and
may even lose majority control altogether to Republicans. The extent of the power turnover is unknown;
the circulating predictions are derived primarily from political polling that may or may not prove accurate
so far from the election date. In order to assess whether social media could be used to model the political
climate and level of discontent among voters with the controlling political party, this study examined
patterns in Facebook fan (or “Like”) uptake for members of 111th Congress. There are 435 House of
Representative seats and 37 Senate seats being contended in November 2010. We hypothesized that the
rate at which Facebook fans and friends were being added to a member of Congress’s official Facebook
fan page, group, or profile page, could be used as an early indicator of general public support of that
politician with respect to his/her opponent. We also hypothesized that aggregated Facebook fan/friend
data could be used to model the level of public support for each of the political parties with respect to one
another. This information may then be used to indicate whether a shift in political power will arrive in the
next election.

Methodology

From May 1 to August 31, 2010, the count of fans/friends for the official Facebook pages of members of
the 111th Congress was recorded daily. To ensure data validity, all Facebook pages were individually
verified as the member’s own official page; pages created by unaffiliated individuals were eliminated
from analysis.

Most, but not all, of the current members of the 111th Congress have official Facebook fan pages. In the
House of Representatives, 251 of the 255 Democratic members (98.4%) and 169 of the 178 Republican
members2 (94.9%) were found to have fan pages. On the Senate side, 53 of the 57 Democratic members
(92.9%) and 39 of the 41 Republican members (95.1%) were found to have fan pages. (Members
identifying as Independents were not included in the study).

1
Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta, “Obama's win means future elections must be fought online”, guardian.co.uk, Friday 7
November 2008.
2
Manning, Jennifer, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Membership of the 111th Congress: A profile, July 19,2010.

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 2

To identify the political trends, we used the rate at which fans were added to Facebook fan pages as the
measure of public sentiment. Because we used percent change over time in our analyses rather than total
fans as the metric for analysis, differences in participation rates are minimized.

Data were analyzed using JMP and Statistical Analysis System software. Percent change over time was
calculated across political affiliation as a whole, as well as stratified by chamber (House of
Representatives and Senate) and by geographic region. Regional definitions were based on the ten
standard Federal Regions established by OMB Circular A-105, "Standard Federal Regions," in April,
1974 and shown in Table 1 below.

Least squares regression models were used to determine statistical changes in Facebook fans over time.
Representative affiliation (Democratic vs. Republican), collection date, as well as an interaction term
(affiliation*date), were used in the regression model. The interaction term was necessary as affiliation
and date each had an effect on one another. Trend lines were used to show increases and/or decreases
across time.

Table 1: Standard Federal Regions

Region States
Region 1 Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
Region 2 New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands
Region 3 Delaware, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, W Virginia
Region 4 Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, N Carolina, S Carolina
Region 5 Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin
Region 6 Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
Region 7 Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska
Region 8 Colorado, Montana, N Dakota, S Dakota, Utah, Wyoming
Region 9 Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Samoa, Guam
Region 10 Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington

Figure 1: Standard Federal Regions

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 3

Results

Significant differences in the magnitude of increase in Facebook fans were found between political
affiliations over time (p<0.0001), with Republican fans increasing more rapidly than Democratic fans
(Figure 2). In addition, Republicans had far more fans overall, with 1,634,127 on May 1 and 2,148,619
on August 31 compared to the Democrats who only had 780,035 on May 1 and 952,847 on August 31
(Table 2).

Figure 2: Cumulative Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation — All Congress

Table 2: Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation Over Time

Democrats Republicans Higher

% p-value
FB Fans FB Fans FB Fans FB Fans Increase
% Chg % Chg
on 5/1 on 8/31 on 5/1 on 8/31
ALL 780,035 952,847 + 22.2 1,634,127 2,148,619 + 31.5 R <0.0001

House 439,331 554,257 + 26.2 628,085 934,842 + 48.8 R <0.0001

Senate 340,704 398,590 + 17.0 1,006,042 1,213,777 + 20.6 NS* 0.1003
* NS=Not Significant

Affiliation by Congressional Body

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 4

As shown in Figures 3 and 4, when stratified by Congressional body, results varied across political
affiliation. For the US House of Representatives, Republican increases surpassed that of Democrats
significantly (p<0.0001). For the US Senate, no significant differences were found across political
affiliation (p=0.1003). In each of these cases, however, the total number of Facebook fans was again far
higher for the Republicans than the Democrats (Table 2). This is particularly relevant since there are
fewer Republicans currently holding office than there are Democrats.

Figure 3: Cumulative Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation — U.S. House

Figure 4: Cumulative Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation — U.S. Senate

Affiliation by Region

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 5

When stratified by region, more regions showed increases in Democratic fans than Republican fans (6 vs.
4 regions). Overall however, the magnitude of increase in Facebook fans was again higher for the
Republicans than the Democrats.

Table 3: Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation Over Time by Region

Democrats Republicans Higher

Region % p-value
FB Fans FB Fans FB Fans FB Fans Increase
% Chg % Chg
on 5/1 on 8/31 on 5/1 on 8/31

1 62,327 75,631 + 21.3 216,764 244,718 + 12.9 D <0.0001

2 70,700 91,145 + 28.9 5,233 5,668 + 8.3 D <0.0001
3 70,741 77,469 + 9.5 41,337 88,958 + 115.2 R <0.0001
4 95,627 117,864 + 23.3 177,825 243,906 + 37.2 R <0.0001
5 241,207 286,952 + 19.0 173,580 316,928 + 82.6 R <0.0001
6 40,631 54,117 + 33.2 307,306 391,544 + 27.4 D <0.0001
7 19,774 23,994 + 21.3 28,537 45,810 + 60.5 R <0.0001
8 22,167 27,735 + 25.1 83,161 94,553 + 13.7 D 0.0009
9 119,991 147,878 + 23.2 589,543 703,846 + 19.4 D <0.0001
10 32,926 45,782 + 39.0 10,841 12,688 + 17.0 D <0.0001

Figure 5: Political Party Advantage in Facebook Fan Growth Rates by Region

Blue = Democrat; Red = Republican

This overall trend can be explained both by the magnitude of change in the 4 regions in which
Republicans dominated. This was especially evident in Figure 6 (Region 3: Delaware, DC, Maryland,

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 6

Pennsylvania, Virginia, W Virginia) where the Republican Facebook following increased by 115% from
May 1 to August 31, 2010.

Figure 6: Percent Change in Facebook Fans by Political Affiliation Over Time – Region 3

Discussion

In 2008, it was Democratic candidate Barack Obama whose campaign embraced and leveraged Web 2.0
platforms, marking a major departure from traditional political campaigns to the use of online social
networks to transform the dynamics of politics. Using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Obama
followed former presidential hopeful Howard Dean’s playbook to use social media and the Internet to
raise a half of a billion dollars online.3 Interestingly, since the Democrats first experienced success in
social media campaigning, one would possibly expect that Democrats would continue to be the leader
with new and social media. However, the findings clearly show the Republican Party has not only caught
up but has surpassed the Democrats in their efforts to harness Facebook to their advantage. The degree of
this advantage varies significantly across regions and is more pronounced in the House of Representatives
than in the Senate.

Given the current political climate of voter discontent with the controlling Democratic Party identified by
falling Congressional approval ratings, as determined by polling,4 the results of this study indicate that
Facebook fan adoption rates may be a useful litmus test for the so-called “political temperature” of the
nation. In this case, the litmus test could be understood as Republicans being more energized into action
and/or the Republican causes becoming more favorable to the general public than Democratic ideals.

3
Vargas, Jose Antonio, Obama Raised Half a Billion Online, Washington Post, November 20, 2008.
4
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 7

One caveat to these findings may be that Republicans, in response to losing political power, may have
worked harder over the study period to enlist more support in an effort to regain power. Thus, results may
be more in keeping with demonstrating marketing success versus a pure measure of political temperature.
The latter also may explain the phenomenon of Republicans having more Facebook fans overall and a
greater magnitude of increase in fans overall, despite only dominating in 3 of the 10 regions.

Conclusion

In the four years since Facebook was opened to the general public in September 2006, the social network
has gathered 500 million active users and surpassed Google as the number one website for visitor traffic
in the U.S. These statistics and the data used in this study clearly demonstrate that Facebook has become a
major communication and information platform that political candidates and incumbents cannot afford to
ignore. However, to date, political presence on the web has been deployed with little understanding of
how to effectively use social media data.

The 2010 mid-term elections provide an opportunity to evaluate the prowess of social media data for
predicting political climate and election outcomes. As voters continue to shift to the web to learn about
and interact with candidates, this rich data set will grow larger and become more important, warranting
additional studies to demonstrate its utility for politics and governance.

Whether or not the Facebook trends witnessed in this study will translate into actual voters on election
day remains to be seen, but a logical follow-up study will compare the data set to actual voting results in
order to conclusively determine if social media activity may serve as a predictable model for reality.

For additional data, or to inquire about a study, please contact:

editors@ohmygov.com

© 2010 OhMyGov Inc. 8